InfoPrint Solutions Forms Developer Program for AFP Testing

September 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

IBM‘s former printing division, which it now operates as a joint venture with Ricoh called the InfoPrint Solutions Company, announced a new developer program this week to allow its partners and customers to test their new printing environments–particularly high-end jobs using Advanced Function Presentation (AFP)–before going live.

For the last nine months, InfoPrint Solutions and a select group of partners–including Exstream Software, GMC Software, Pitney Bowes’ subsidiary Group 1, PrintSoft, and XMPie–have been piloting a new program called the InfoPrint Solutions Developer Program. Under the pilot program, these partners gained access to printing and AFP experts from InfoPrint, to plan and test new printing applications.

Now, InfoPrint Solutions is ready to make the program available to a wider group of partners who are interested in working with InfoPrint’s experts to reduce the cost and lower the risk of their large-scale production printing projects. The organization is making available two high-end continuous form models, the InfoPrint 5000 and InfoPrint 4100, to participants in the program.

In particular, the new InfoPrint Solutions Developer Program will have a strong focus on improving the performance and control over color rendition, which is largely handled through AFP.

George Promis, vice president of color solutions and technology alliances at the Boulder, Colorado, company, says the new program will allow InfoPrint Solutions to work side by side with its partners. “As we continue to push innovation in color and transpromo in particular, our technology partners remain key to our success,” he says.